Chongqing to Hohhot

23rd

I ate so much I nearly puked last night, walked back to the hotel slowly and carefully just managing to keep it down. Set off at 9.30 to get properly into the grasslands, there was a gap of about 20 kms between two x roads that I thought I could bridge. The bike spluttered a couple of times on the way there but I decided to press on :asshat: and found a dirt track that looked to be heading in the right direction. Off I went thinking I'd show those luvvies McGregor and Boorman how its done, unfortunately the spluttering got more and more frequent until finally the bike was dead in the water. I tried to mess around with the coil and it fired up momentarily but no long term joy, so I pushed it the final 4 kilometres to the tarmac road then 5 more to the nearest town, Siziwang. There, the first mechanic didn't have a new coil but gave me a used one and invited me in for a drink (I probably looked like I needed it), disappointingly I only made it a few hundred metres up the road before it konked out again, luckily near a bigger bike shop. I changed the coil for a new one and gave it a test ride but it spluttered to a halt pretty quickly. I forced a reluctant mechanic to try it and he came back saying a wire was being nipped while steering, he then came out with a meter and I knew then I had the right man for the job. He quickly found the problem and I now have no tachometer but I do have a running bike. I know the yingang so well now I don't really need the taco anyway. So mission accomplished, a Mongolian offroad adventure was certainly achieved, it was a bit of a ballache but at least the bike is ready for the return leg. Got back into town for a traditional meal of pot au sheep, I fly out tomorrow and will leave the bike with the good people at suzuki. Total kms 3410.


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Golden hans - a dangerous place for the weak willed

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Grasslands


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Start of track connecting the two x roads


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Nice wood amoung the steppe


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Reminded me of the south of France

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This where the bike started to get really bad, it broke down completely a kilometre down the road


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They also farm wind. It was absolutely enormous


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This was especially for Milton, mutton on the bone - the local speciality. A bit pricey at 70 quai though.




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You just gotta suck out that marrow, it's good for your healthy



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Tom woz 'ere

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How many asses is it gonna take to pull this bugger out?

Sorry couldn't resist one last one

great ride, enjoyed the report. When are you going to drive back?

Great writing and adventures as usual Tom. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers!
ChinaV

Myself and Joe will be heading east from Hohhot on the 24/25 September. All are welcome to join us, we will then go south through Ningxia, then Gansu, Qinghai, and Sichuan before finishing in Chengdu. We plan to meet tombaxers and his new jialing sidecar in Gansu

Classic read sir, it was an honour getting messed up with a pro such as yourself.

Good to see you made it all the way there, some nice bits along the way it seems. Although 200+ kuai to ride through a crowded park full of fake old stuff is classic china rape. I'm so sick of anything touristy here, it's either overpriced brand new '1500 year old' temples or overpriced 'old town' that sells the same made-in-yiwu ethic shit as every other place in asia or overpriced park entry to see a big mountain sandwiched between giant advertising billboards to cover the piles of rubbish at the base. If its in a guidebook, don't bother. Really sorry for that, it's weird how fast a thought about china turns into a rant about china.

Anyway thanks for sharing man, and it wouldn't be a china bike trip if you didn't have to push.

Cheers!
tom

Felix - I think a good rant now and then is absolutely necessary to maintain our sanity! By the way, the sprockets my mate thought he'd found for the liger were the wrong size after all. it seems there's next to nothing in the way of after market parts for that bike.

Cracking report Tom!

Off to buy some decent maps of Ningxia, Gansu and Qinghai tomorrow so I'm gonna have a gander at them and see where we can possibly meet up and head in convoy. The plan I am thinking now if it suited is to head North West out of Yinchuan straight into the desert and do a loop around through the dunes (road showed on Google Maps and photos shown on Google Earth look insane) coming out of the desert again at either Zhangye or Jiuquan, which hits the main road up to Dunhuang or probably for you and Joe back down to Lanzhou and South to Chongqing.